Share via

It sounds more like a film than an election: two little girls grew up as
neighbours, occasionally playing or riding their bicycles together, their
fathers both officers in the Chilean military who shared a love of music and
books.

Then in 1973, General Augusto Pinochet staged a right-wing coup, and the
fathers chose opposite sides of the ideological divide. Evelyn Matthei’s
father, Fernando, sided with the junta, and Michelle Bachelet’s father,
Alberto, backed the democratically elected left-wing Salvador Allende.

In the months after the coup, Fernando Matthei was put in charge of the
military academy, where his old friend was